The UNCG MFA Program

The Master of Fine Arts in creative writing is a two-year residency program with an emphasis on providing students with studio time in which to study the writing of poetry of fiction. The program's flexibility permits students to develop their particular talents through small classes in writing, literature, and the arts. As a community of writers, students read and comment on each other's work under the guidance of resident and visiting faculty, who also meet with students in one-on-one tutorials.

The MFA Writing Program at Greensboro is one of the oldest such programs in the country. During the early years, the University had among its faculty a number of noted writers, such as Allen Tate, Caroline Gordon, John Crowe Ransom, Hiram Haydn, Peter Taylor, and Randall Jarrell. They invited other distinguished writers to campus to read from their work and to meet with students; these writers included Robert Lowell, Robert Frost, Flannery O’Connor, Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty, and Saul Bellow.

The MFA Writing Program is designed for for full-time residential students. The degree requires forty-eight hours of course work, a thesis (a volume of poems, short stories, or a novel), and an oral examination.

Alumni from the MFA Writing Program at Greensboro have gone on to teach or direct writing programs at such places as the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Cornell University, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Florida State University, and the University of Arkansas.

The MFA Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro is a two-year graduate program that admits four-to-seven poets and four-to-seven fiction writers each academic year. Our program is full-time and residency for classes is required. Because the program is so small, our admissions process is extremely competitive.

Video Spotlight

Fausto Barrionuevo, MFA 2013

The Greensboro Review

FICTION: The Fall of Rome by Anthony Varallo

He shouldn’t have worn sneakers. That was a mistake. A shower would have helped, too. Why could he never remember that skipping a shower didn’t lend him a feeling of rebelliousness, as his mirror would like to have him think, but only made him feel slimy, insecure?…